Court: Mates, Bowden and guns
AN alleged associate of a Shane Bowden murder accused told an undercover cop he was “willing to threaten” officers – who raided his home – with one of the high-powered weapons he was hiding in his garage and bedroom, a court has heard.
Dylan Jake Anthony Bock, 23, from Doolandella in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, was in the District Court in Brisbane on Wednesday on serious weapons offences.
Prosecutor Ben Jackson told the court that Bock was aged 21 when police found a machinegun hidden in his home and he was “associating with extremely serious criminality”.
Police forced entry into baby-faced Bock’s Doolandella home on October 19, 2020, because Mr Bock was allegedly an associate of alleged Mongols bikie Jake Andrew Taylor, 27, from Bellbird Park.
Taylor is in prison on remand charged with the murder of bikie Shane Bowden on October 12, 2020.
“Mr Taylor now confronts extremely serious offending, which is in the Magistrates Court, he is charged with murder,” Mr Jackson told the court.
“But I’m reluctant to perhaps go into details of that because I don’t wish to in any way imply the accused murder offence is connected to the offending here,” Mr Jackson told Judge Smith.
Taylor has been charged
with supplying the guns found at Bock’s house, Mr Jackson told the court.
Mr Jackson told the court that there was mystery surrounding why Bock held the cache of guns in his garage and bedroom.
“There is the implication, that the weapons that were seized may have been involved in other offending. There’s always the risk that when one houses a large number of weapons that they could be used in either a past murder or a prospective murder or an armed robbery
for example,” he told the court.
Mr Jackson gave Judge Smith a series of chilling colour photographs of the nine guns and a silencer found at the home.
After police forced entry to Bock’s Rockfield Rd two-storey duplex, Bock ran upstairs and police found him “hiding upstairs”, the court heard.
They found a shortened sawn-off rifle in his bedroom, and in the garage they found ten fully operational weapons including a silencer and a machine gun, which Mr Jackson
told the court was believed to be of Russian origin, due to “non-english lettering” on it.
In court on Wednesday Bock pleaded guilty to six charges, with the first charge attracting up to 13 years in prison.
The charges include one count of unlawful possession of two or more weapons, with at least five of them being category D, E, H or R, one count of possessing a weapon with an altered identification mark, possession of a shortened firearm, authority required to possess explosives, possession of dangerous drugs and possession of utensils or pipes.
After his arrest during the police raid, Bock made several “concerning” admissions to an undercover cop in a holding cell, Mr Jackson told the court.
Bock told the undercover officer that he had “a gun out” when police stormed his home and that “he was willing to threaten a police officer ... with a weapon” and he knew the pricing of guns and how they are traded, the court heard.
“There is perhaps a level of bravado, but it shows a very concerning attitude that Mr Bock had at the time,” Mr Jackson said.
Mr Jackson did not allege Bock was planning to sell the guns or that he had hatched a plan to use them to commit a crime.
Mr Jackson submitted Bock should be jailed for 2 ½ years for the cache of “lethal weapons”.
He was due to be sentenced this week but after Judge Smith said he was considering jailing Bock due to his lack of co-operation with authorities, Bock’s barrister Matthew Hynes asked that the hearing be adjourned.
Judge Paul Smith said that if Bock “gave a statement” to police, he may not go to prison, and may serve a suspended sentence instead.
Bock, who sports tattoos on each of his fingers, the back of his hand and down the side of his neck, has previously “not provided any co-operation” to police, Mr Jackson said.
His case is due back court on November 14.